


No Secrets

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 22:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12781416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: After he's returned from his abduction, Mulder and Scully have a talk about their relationship.  Season Eight AU.





	No Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

Mulder feels fine now, really he does, but Scully doesn’t seem to want to listen.  “You need to rest,” she says, ushering him towards his room as they walk into the apartment.  “You’ve been through a lot.”  And he knows where she’s coming from—he remembers after her abduction, the way she had to insist on being back in the field again and even then he wasn’t quite sure about it, and there wasn’t even as much between them in those days.   But resting is the last thing he wants to do right now, when there’s so much else he could be doing.  Eating something good, maybe, instead of hospital food, or going for a run, or pulling her into him and kissing her.  That last one sounds especially good, but they haven’t in a while, not since he came back, not since she found him, and he’s not sure where to start, not with that expression on her face.  But when she says, “Why don’t you get some sleep?”, he feels the need to protest.

“I don’t need to sleep, Scully,” he says.  “I’ve gotten plenty of sleep in the hospital.  I’m really not tired.”

She looks at him as if she’s going to push back—to protest his protest—and then her expression shifts.  He’s not sure if he likes the shift, though.  There’s still a challenge in her face, and when she says, “All right.  Why don’t we talk, then?”, he gets the feeling there’s going to be some kind of reckoning.

But he says, “Sure, let’s talk.”

They both take seats on the couch, at her insistence: she says she wants him resting in some form, at least.  It hasn’t been that long in the grand scheme of things—only a few weeks—but it’s odd for a moment, settling into that familiar place, those familiar positions, with all that they’ve just been through.  She looks at him steadily for a few moments, still with that same expression, and he’s about to say something just to break the silence when she comes out with, “Were you ever going to tell me?”

He honestly doesn’t have an answer.  He’d like to say yes, but he might have kept putting it off, day after day and week after week, and one day things would have ended.  She’d been so happy.  She’d said it herself.  She’d smiled more than he’d ever seen since their first days together, when things were—not simple, not easy, but a hell of a lot less tangled and painful.  He hadn’t wanted to ruin that.  Not for her.  Not for him either, honestly.  He can’t pretend it wasn’t selfish.  “I don’t know,” he says.

“And you weren’t telling me because?” she asks.  “Or do you not know that either?”

“No, I…I know I…I thought for a while I could figure it out,” he says.  “And then you wouldn’t have to worry about it.  And after that I just didn’t—”

“I wouldn’t have to worry about it?” she says.  “Mulder, have I ever done something to make you think that I wouldn’t want to know if something was going on with you?  Especially something this big?”

“No,” he says.  “No, of course you haven’t.”  This isn’t on her, it’s on him, they both know it, he can tell that from the harshness in her voice, and maybe this is it, the end after all, maybe this is all he’s come back to, and it’s undeniably his fault. 

“I had to find out you were sick from Agent Doggett,” she says, and she practically spits out the words.  “Did you ever think about what that might be like for me, Mulder?  Having to learn this from someone else? If something happened to you or…”  She stops and takes a breath, and her voice is more even when she speaks again.  “He wasn’t exactly thinking about breaking it to me gently, either,” she says, and Mulder is briefly angry at Agent Doggett for that, then realizes how little moral high ground he has here.  “But at least he told me, right?  At least someone told me.”  She’s barely looking at him.  “You could have died,” she says.  Her hand moves in the space between them, brushing over his, and he’s afraid to do anything, to move or to touch her hand back, not knowing if she’s conscious of what she’s done.  “You could have died if I hadn’t gone back and looked at your medical records from last year.  If I hadn’t figured out what was happening and how to reverse it.  And you…you weren’t going to tell me?”  Her voice is no longer even now, but she’s not yelling either; it sounds like all the air has gone out of her.

“I didn’t think there was anything we could do about it,” he says, but he realizes how stupid that is even as he’s saying it.  Of course, if there was anyone who could do something about it, it would be Scully.  Because she’s just done it, after all.  His memories of the past few weeks are jumbled, but he knows that much.  He remembers stumbling across the ground somewhere in the desert, feeling sick and weak, and then he remembers her holding him, telling him not to try to get up, that she was going to fix this.  He remembers being in the hospital out there in Arizona, while she stood by his bed and gave orders to other, unfamiliar, doctors.  He remembers her sitting next to him and holding his hand and telling him what she’d done, how she’d worked it all out, and that he was going to be all right now.  _She knows,_ he thought, but she didn’t seem upset with him then.  Not like she does now.  “It was stupid.  I know that now.”

“It was,” she says.  “I’m a doctor, Mulder, you didn’t think I might have some ideas about what to do?  And it was…I’m not just a doctor, Mulder.  I’m your partner.  I’m your…”  She falters, waves her hand in a gesture that encompasses the two of them, the couch, the apartment as a whole.  He knows what she means and doesn’t blame her for not knowing how to say it.  There have been words between them now— _beautiful_ and _wanted this so long_ and _oh yes oh yes_ and, finally, in those last weeks before he was taken, _I love you_ and _I love you too_ —but they’ve never had a word for the two of them.  Sometimes he wishes they did, especially now, when he’s wondering if he’s wasted his last chance.

“I know,” he says.  “I know I…I screwed up, Scully.”

“I’d say you did more than screw up,” she says, and even though he thinks she’s right it’s painful to hear.  “You…I just…you can’t keep things from me like that, Mulder.  We can’t be a team if you’re keeping things from me.  Especially big things.”

“I know,” he says again.  It seems to be all he can say, because there’s no denying that Scully’s in the right here, that what seemed like the only thing he could do at the time—in the moment—was the wrong thing to do if you gave it any reflection (of course, he’d done his best to avoid reflecting).  “I shouldn’t have kept it from you, Scully.  But I never meant to hurt you.  Please believe me about that, at least.  I wanted to keep from hurting you.”

She nods.  “You can’t do that, though,” she says.  “I’m a grown woman, and I’m your partner, and you have to tell me things.  You can’t try to protect me.  I know I don’t…I’m not always the best at telling you these kinds of things either, when it’s about me.  So I’m going to try to be better at that,” she adds, and he lets out a breath, because that doesn’t sound like something she would do if she were about to walk out of here, telling him they were over and not looking back.  “But it has to come from both of us.  It can’t only be me.  We both have to tell each other these things.  We can’t have secrets.  Not now.”

He’s not quite sure what she means by _not now_ , but it doesn’t matter, not when there are things he has to say.  “I understand that,” he says.  “I’ll try to be better too, I promise.  I’m so sorry, Scully.”  He touches her hand now, deliberately, and she clasps it back.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” she says.  “And Mulder, I couldn’t…These last few weeks…it was bad enough not knowing what had happened to you…and if it was because of something we could have stopped, if you’d only told me…I don’t know what I would have done.”  She’s biting at her lip now, and there’s a choke in her voice, and he pulls her to him, slowly, so grateful when she leans into his touch.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again.  “I know I hurt you.  And all I can say is…well, just what I already said.  That I didn’t mean to and that I’ll do everything I can not to do it again.” 

She nods.  “I’ll hold you to that,” she says, and then she raises her head and kisses him, chastely at first, but somehow they end up staying that way for a while.  Her hand comes up and cups the back of his head, running through his hair, and he clings to her.  He can’t ruin this.

She’s smiling at him when they pull apart, but there’s something else in her expression that he can’t quite read: she almost looks shy.  “There’s actually…there’s something I have to tell you,” she says.  “It’s nothing bad.  But it is a big deal, and it might…no, what am I saying, might, it’ll definitely change some things, so we need to talk about it together, and it’s part of why we need to be on the same page now, because we need to plan things out and…yeah, we’ll be in this together for a while now.  That is if you want to.  I…I thought you would but maybe I shouldn’t assume…”  She trails off and looks at him, her face now a mixture of hope and nerves.

He has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about at this point.  “Are you aware that you didn’t actually tell me the thing?” he says.  “Whatever it is.”

“Oh!” she says.  “Yeah, I know, I was just trying to set things up…but I guess that would be helpful, wouldn’t it?”

“Very,” he says.  “So go ahead, Scully.  No secrets, remember?”

“No secrets,” she says.  “All right, okay.  So this is…well, it’s a big surprise, but it’s a good one, at least I think so, and I hope you will…”  He’s wondering if she’s ever going to get to it at this point.  But then she grabs his hand tightly in hers and moves it towards her, joining her other hand which is lying across her belly, and he barely has a split second to think before she says the words.  “Mulder, I’m pregnant.”

He wouldn’t have guessed this from her jumble of words, from her _no secrets, not now_ and _this’ll change some things_ and _we’ll be in this together for a while._   He wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years.  He couldn’t have guessed something so momentous.  He wants to say something to her, something to convey how awed he is, but his words come out as jumbled as hers.  “Scully…I…you’re what…I just…are you saying we…”  Her brows are furrowed as she looks at his face, and he knows he needs to say something reassuring, something that lets her know how much he wants this too even if he can’t be articulate right now.  “Incredible,” he manages.  “You…this…it’s incredible.”  And her face relaxes; she smiles and grips his hand tighter.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” she says.  “I almost didn’t believe it myself at first, when they told me.”

“Was that why you were feeling sick?” he asks, remembering that night in Oregon, those weeks ago.

“Yeah,” she says.  “Looks like it.” 

“But you’re okay now?” he asks.  “You…and the baby…you’re okay?”

She nods.  “We’re okay,” she says.  “I’m still a little tired, of course, and queasy sometimes—that’s just part of the first trimester, you know.”  He’s torn between adoration at the matter-of-fact way she says it—this is going to be their life now—and guilt at what he’s put her through in the past few weeks, when she should have been resting.  He settles for cuddling her against him again, hoping that will say it all.  “But my doctor says everything looks good so far,” she adds.  “Healthy.  Normal.”  There’s an incredible smile on her face as she says the last word.  Something normal.  For the two of them.  Who would have thought it?

He kisses the top of her head.  “I can’t believe we did this,” he says.  “Scully, it’s wonderful.”

“It really is,” she says.  “It really is, isn’t it?”  And then she kisses him again, and he tries to put everything he has into the kiss, to show her how happy he is and that he knows how important this is.  “Like I said,” she tells him when they break apart, “there’s a lot we’ll have to talk about.  To figure out.”

“I think we can handle that,” he says.

“I do too,” she says, “somehow,” and there’s that smile again.  He smiles back, resting his hand on her belly, and thinks about the promise he just made.  He’s going to keep it, because he can’t even imagine doing anything to jeopardize the two of them now.  The three of them, soon.


End file.
